


What If You're Someone I Just Want Around

by mrsbarlow



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Christmas, M/M, this is sad feelings & lonely winter missing someone vibes, with a hopeful?? ending though because im a sap & can only handle so many emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21786427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbarlow/pseuds/mrsbarlow
Summary: William’s finger hovers over the screen, not quite willing to hit call. He’s been sitting here staring at the box since before the sun went down, practically, but he still doesn’t know what to say. There are about eight million thoughts swirling around in his head and most of them aren’t words but memories, glimpses of Sweden and sixteen, long hair, scrunched-nose laughs, and a very different kind of Christmas from the one William is stuck in right now.
Relationships: William Nylander/David Pastrnak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	What If You're Someone I Just Want Around

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve listened to Falling by HS at least 37 times already & no one fits that song quite like these two so. Here’s a short, sad Christmas fic. I’ll write something happy and fun next time.

It says a lot, maybe, about William’s current emotional state that he’s sitting alone in his dark living room at one forty-three am the Monday before Christmas, wrapped in a blanket, huddled in the soft glow of the zigzagged Christmas lights he half-heartedly strung across his apartment.

The small brown box sits unwrapped on the coffee table beside him, ribbon unwound and tangled atop a stack of take-out menus. William has been staring at it for several hours now, and it’s taken him just as long to pick up his phone and dial.

William’s finger hovers over the screen, not quite willing to hit call. He’s been sitting here staring at the box since before the sun went down, practically, but he still doesn’t know what to say. There are about eight million thoughts swirling around in his head and most of them aren’t words but memories, glimpses of Sweden and sixteen, long hair, scrunched-nose laughs, and a very different kind of Christmas from the one William is stuck in right now. 

A blue bulb on one of the light strands flickers on and off. It makes something stick tight in William’s throat, and he feels colder than he’s ever been. William buries his nose and chin in the soft green wool and presses call.

He barely hears it ring. He’s too busy watching the blue light sputtering in and out.

“Hello?” says a sleepy voice on the other end of the phone.

“Pasta.”

“William,” Pasta sighs, a soft breath more than his name. His voice is muffled like he’s still got his face stuck half into the pillow the way he sleeps. Willy used to be so nervous that he’d stop breathing in his sleep and made an accidental habit of waking up in the middle of the night to check. Sometimes he still wakes up and panics a little when there’s no one breathing but him.

“I know it’s late. You were sleeping, sorry.”

“Wasn’t sleeping,” Pasta mumbles.

“Liar,” Willy scoffs, quiet. He chews at one of the blanket tassels, curls his toes as if trying to draw himself in even tighter.

“You are still awake? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Hmm. You haven’t wanted to talk much lately.”

“I always want to talk to you, Pasta.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the phone. William can hear the clock on Pasta’s bedside table ticking loudly into the silence through the phone. He can also hear what sounds like Pasta’s heart beating, but he knows that can’t be true.

“You are alone for holidays again this year.” It’s not a question, but he says it like one: gentle, prompting, looking for William to give him more than non-answers and vague nothings.

William shrugs in his blanket burrito as if Pasta can see him. “I’m used to it.”

“I know. I wish you were not. It’s not good to be so alone when it’s cold like this, yeah? Makes your bones tired.”

“You’re just an old man.”

There’s a painfully long pause in which the flickering blue light peters out and doesn’t come back on, and William hears the tap run as his upstairs neighbour fills a bath. Pasta doesn’t say anything. William wonders if he fell back to sleep.

“I got your gift. The ornament, I—it’s beautiful, thank you.”

“You have it?” There’s a bright note in Pasta’s voice, any sleepiness gone in an instant.

“Yeah. I’ve got it right here,” William reaches out and snags the box off the coffee table and holds it gently in his lap. The ornament is nestled in the center, nothing too fancy, not made of glass or gold or carved from an ice sculpture. It’s wood—thin and light—it smells fresh and it’s somehow the softest thing William’s every touched. Maybe because he knows that Pasta held it in his hands just a few days ago, and Pasta’s hands are William’s favourite thing to hold in the whole world.

It’s a circle, barely bigger than a puck, the surface carved delicately with wreathes and snowflakes and a pair of skates at the center. William’s eyes feel all prickly, probably from staring at the lights.

“You like it?” Pasta asks.

“Yeah,” William says, clears his throat, because his voice sounds hoarse, “yeah, I love it. Where did you get it? Don’t tell me you made it and you’ve taken up, like, woodworking or something.”

“Ha!” Pasta snorts. “I am not so old yet. There is a market near my house with cabins and soap and hats and things. A lady was selling these. It will look nice on your tree.”

“I don’t have a tree.”

“No tree?”

“Too many needles. Sap on all my coats. Pine’s not really my signature scent.”

“Ah.”

“And. You know. I don’t really need a tree if it’s just me.”

“Just you.”

“My family isn’t coming, remember, not with Alex in Chicago now.”

“What about Kapanen?”

“His girlfriend’s having a thing or whatever,” William mumbles. He doesn’t know if Kappy’s girlfriend is having something. He doesn’t even know if Kappy is still with his girlfriend. He’s stopped trying to keep up. He isn’t going to ask Kappy to come for Christmas because William doesn’t really feel like Christmas this year. He’s been sitting in the glow of his shitty Christmas lights for one evening and he feels like Frosty the Snowman melting in the greenhouse. Or maybe the little girl who watched Frosty melt. One of the two, that’s how William feels.

“Next year will be different, maybe,” Pasta offers.

“Maybe.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Not really.”

“Next year I will cut down a big tree from the Boston garden park and bring it on a plane to you. We’ll put popcorn on it or whatever it is and your ornament too. Next year you get me one. Start a collection, yeah?”

“Pasta,” William whispers.

“Hm.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t lie to you, William.”

“Don’t make me promises you can’t keep, then.”

Now it’s Pasta who is quiet, run out of words. Upstairs, the neighbour turns off the bath water.

“So not next year.” His voice sounds far away. William turns up the volume of the call, not ready to let go just yet. “Someday, then. I can promise someday.”

“Someday?”

“When I’m an old man for real and you don’t care about sap on coats or pine smell.”

“I’m always going to care about sap on my coats, Pasta.”

“William.”

William closes his eyes against the lights and breathes out slow into the soft wool holding him together. “Okay.”

“Put it on your mirror, on the dashboard, for now.”

“What?”

“The ornament. No tree, no problem. Lady at the cabin says it will bring you luck. Keep your bones from getting cold.”

William’s bones are still cold, and the lights are burning through his closed eyelids, but he keeps them closed, spins the loop of the ornament around and around on his finger. He holds the phone to his ear until he hears Pasta’s breathing grow muffled and uneven and knows he’s fallen asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> I yell about hockey [here](https://gabithagrumbles.tumblr.com/)


End file.
